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It’s day two of the Branded in the 80s Robocop-a-thon, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to look at the Topps movie trading cards from 1990. Though this set was primarily produced for the Robocop sequel, the designers at Topps were thoughtful enough to include about 20 cards at the beginning of the set that recap the events of the first film. If I had to guess I’d say that in 1986-87, when the first feature was being merchandised, Topps took a pass on licensing the property as they weren’t sure if their product was probably good fit for the adult content of the movie. Though they had previous produced licensed card sets for films like Alien, Rambo: First Blood, Part 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Fright Night, Pumpkinhead, and Predator (the latter four form the Fright Flicks set), I had to believe that the over the top uber violence and adult themes in Robocop would be a concern in a line of cards meant largely for kids. Well, after the successful marketing push of the first film throughout 1987 and into 1988 with the cartoon spin-off and toy-line, I’m sure Topps were kicking themselves and when the opportunity arose for licensing on the sequel, they were right there at the front of the line…

Though I kind of wish that these 1st movie cards featured a different border and color scheme than the standard Robocop 2 card design, I am glad Topps saw fit to include them. Most of the cards feature Murphy as Robocop punching, shooting, and hair-dragging the villains from the film, but there are also some cool shots like the one with Peter Weller and Nancy Allen below that I think is from a promotional still. I also love the card featuring the scene from later in the film when Murphy is trying to work on his aim. Love the subtle inappropriateness of blasting away at something so pure and tiny as baby food bottles.

There are also a couple of fun cards that feature some behind the scenes shots, like this group photo of Clarence Boddicker and his “associates”, as well as the still where we can see the hands of the off-screen “puppeteer” about to spear Boddiker with Robocop’s F-U-Usb interface spike…

The picture of the Boddicker crew really unnerves me for some reason. When I first saw this flick in the theater as a kid I was genuinely afraid of these characters, and because there was so many adult themed scenes with them (snorting coke, having their junk out in front of nice lady cops, or taking hazardous baths in toxic waste) I have since had a very hard time not associating the characters with the actors ever since. In some cases this did nothing but enhance their performances in later projects (Kurtwood Smith as Red Foreman in That 70s Show for instance), but in others it made it nearly impossible to watch them in other parts (like Paul “Emil the Melting Man” McCrane as Dr. Robert Romano in ER.) So seeing them in this behind the scenes group photo ass giggling an huggy just feels extra sleazy to me. I know it’s irrational, but it’s just disturbing. Granted, not nearly as disturbing as this next set of cards…

I’ll be honest, I’m a horrible judge at what is and isn’t appropriate for kids. Sure, I can easily say porn is not for kids (or honestly for me, but whatever), but when it comes to things like violence and horror movies I have a harder time finding the line. As I’ve mentioned, I saw Robocop in the theater when I was 10 and even though a lot of the stuff make me squirm in my chair, I still loved ever single minute of it and unless there’s some stuff I’ve done during a blackout where I don’t remember, I’ve never hurt anyone and am a pretty nice, compassionate and grounded individual. But even I would say that some of these bubblegum cards are pretty rough and probably not the kind of thing you want your kids taking to school and trading for stickers and Hot Wheels. Did they really need to single out the attempted rape scene for a card? Hell, I’m surprised there isn’t a card featuring Bob Morton snorting blow off of that one hooker’s boobs. The Murphy execution cards are the worst (though I do have a couple others that are right up there that I’ll be sharing on another day.)

On July 17th, 1987 two very monumental things happened to me that would alter my perspective and change the rest of my life. First, I turned 10 years-old, and proving myself to be a pretty patient and responsible kid, my parents lifted the ban on hard R-rated films, including entire libraries of horror films available at the local video stores. Second, Robocop opened in theaters across the United States. Taking full advantage of my newfound cinematic freedom I practically drug my mother to the earliest, most convenient screening that weekend (I still needed a parent present to see R-rated flicks), and proceeded to gorge myself on almost two full hours of sarcastic black comedy and ultra-violence the likes of which I’d only seen glimpses of in the pages of Fangoria magazine. Though my mom laughed off most of the really intense moments during the screening, I know that somewhere in the back of her mind she was reeling and seriously questioning the decision to give me such free reign when it came to my viewing choices.

Twenty five years later I can’t help but look back with astonishment at the freedom my parents gave me that summer, but at the same time it reminds me of all the time I spent with my mom watching movies late at night on the weekends. We must have talked about the violence and adult themes, though for the life of me I don’t remember any specific conversations. It was common knowledge in the Robare household that my sister wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated films until she turned sixteen, and 1987 was the year she turned eighteen and had her eyes on college and moving out. Maybe lifting my movie ban was my parent’s way of bracing me for this first of many transitions I’d be facing while growing up. Or maybe, they were tired of always fighting with my sister on movie suitability, and I had the benefit of some lazy, second-kid parenting. Either way, this opportunity was not squandered, and I spent the better part of the next two years devouring the horror and sci-fi sections of my local Home Video store, alphabetically renting my way through hundreds of films. Believe it or not, barely any of them had the effect of my first theatrical screening of Robocop, and even to this day it’s pretty rare that I stumble across a film that can make me squirm as much as I do when re-watching that seminal film.

About two weeks ago it occurred to me that my birthday this year would not only be a big one for myself (I’m turning 35, which was the age my father was when he had me), but it would also mark the first really nostalgic anniversary of the theatrical release of Robocop. Since this film had such a drastic impact on my life, I thought it fitting to dedicate the next week of Branded with a mini Robocop-themed blog-a-thon. So from now until July 17th you can expect articles that will Serve the Public Trust, Uphold the Law, Protect the Innocent, and most importantly articles that will highlight the badassery of all those involved with making this film and franchise a reality.

To kick things off, here’s the 10-page article from the December 1987 issue of Cinefantastique (volume 16, number 1) written by Dan Bates (with an insert pieces by C.V. Drake and Brooks Landon.) This one is loaded with behind-the-scenes photos and trivia!

Some of the interesting tidbits gleemed from this article include the pedigree of talent working on the film. Not only did the writers, Neumeier and Miner, both work with Alex Cox (Repo Man), but the producer, Jon Davison, came up in the Roger Corman New World camp, and would also produce features like Airplane! and the Joe Dante Segment in Twilight Zone the Movie. This independent and cost conscious background led to a film with a relatively tiny budget of $12 million. It’s amazing what they were able to achieve with this small amount of funds.

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Also, Rob Bottin did some amazing work on the Robocop armor and make-up. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the gloves were made out of foam latex…

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There’s also a lot of kudos given to the boom in adult comics as a huge inspiration to both the tone and scope of the film. Director Verhoeven took the interesting and varied angles and perspectives of comics, and with a nod to the work of John Houston, he shot many of the scenes with between 6 to 8 cameras so that he could capture all the action in one take and then have all sorts of fun angles to play with in the editing room…

I’ve recently rekindled my passion for finding and reading 80s era movie tie-in novelizations, and in restarting the hunt for books there were a few candidates that jumped up to the top of my list. One in particular has proven super difficult to track down, the novelization of the Tom Hanks/Penny Marshall movie Big. I can’t confirm that a novelization actually exists as I’ve never seen it, and finding evidence on the internet is proving to be way more difficult than I could ever have imagined. First off, there aren’t that many folks talking about novelizations as it is, but this is drastically compounded by the fact that using “Big” as a search term is about as useful as searching for a determiner like the world “the”. Adding insult to injury is combining it with “Tom Hanks”, “Movie”, “Tie-in”, “Novelization”, or “Book”. Try looking up “Big” in fiction and literature on Amazon, and then decide whether it’s worth the 16 hours it would take to flip through the six billion books the database brings up. Long story short, I can’t confirm this novelization exists outside of a few forum posts, and none of these ever list anything remotely useful, like say the name of the author. The search wasn’t completely fruitless though, as it did turn up one piece of obscure Big merchandise that I had been totally unaware of, a 1988 comic book adaptation!

I know, “What the what?!?” indeed. It’s not that comic book adaptations of flicks are all that rare, it’s just weird to find one that wasn’t action, horror, or science fiction-oriented. You don’t tend to see dramas or comedies adapted because the target audience, especially in the 80s was almost always 12 year-old boys, and by and large most comics aimed at this audience are almost always super hero-related, with the stray Archie and cartoon adaptation thrown in for good measure. What makes this even weirder, at least for me, is that this single issue was published by Hit Comics, which was a division of Dark Horse, the company at the time that was responsible for bringing us a line of very adult and graphic movie tie-ins including Terminator, Aliens, Predator, and Robocop. Big just doesn’t seem like a likely candidate to fit in with this line’s tone or audience appeal. Regardless it exists, and when I first found out about it I really hard my hopes up that it was going to be amazing considering it was largely advertised as featuring the artwork of Paul Chadwick, the man behind Dark Horse’s Concrete…

Before I get into the actual comic though, I wanted to take a look at the single most important reason this comic book exists, which is the back cover (featured above.) A full page advertisement for Big coming to store on VHS seems a little redundant, but then again it explains the entire endeavor. I know this is obvious, but this comic is just one giant advertisement for the home video release, but considering it was released via Dark Horse is where it gets a little weird in my eyes. See, back in ’88 DH didn’t have the market presence of some of their rivals like Marvel and DC. To be honest, I don’t remember seeing any DH titles in grocery or convenience stores, only in the specialty comic stores. So it’s weird that an obvious 32 page advertisement would be produced, with writers, pencilers, inkers, and colorists brought on board just to have it sit on a rack in a comic store being largely overshadowed by a plethora of more popular titles. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that this was comic ended up as a marketing blunder and an eventual lesson learned by both DH and 20th Century Fox, that in the future the future it might be a better idea to try something else (like Dark Horse partnering with New Line to reverse the process and bring their comics properties to the screen, ala The Mask.)

Anyway, this obscure gem exists, and I thought I’d take a few moments to take a look at what it is we did get. So, as I was saying earlier, I was pretty excited by the idea of Paul Chadwick handing the illustrative duties on the book, but then was sorely disappointed when I had the comic in hand and realized he only worked on the cover. The actual comic was penciled by Jack Pollock, inked by John Nyberg, and adapted by Mark Verheiden. Pollock worked in the production department at DH and brought a very Mad Magazine-esqe cartoony-ness to the project. It’s not that this is awful, but it wasn’t the wistful tone that I was expecting from Chadwick’s brush. As far as the adaptation of the film goes, well, it’s all basically there, though extremely abbreviated considering the actual comic only runs 28 pages. Most scenes only get a panel or two, and a majority of the dialogue is reserved for the key quotes from the flick. I was actually surprised that they really managed to fit it all in considering…

Back to the artwork, again, it’s not awful, though it is pretty loose and a lot of the caricatures and exaggeration tend to go way too far. There are a bunch of places in the book where Pollock tries to ramp up the intensity of a scene, or to capture the action of the film and he just ends up going way too far off the grid. Take this segment where Josh Baskin wakes up as a fully grown man…

Egads, no one ever needed to see that particular angle of comic book Tom Hank’s underwear-covered taint. The effect this has on the tone of the overall book can be quite drastic at time. Consider this next scene when Josh first confronts his mother…

Wow, vicious and kind of scary. This cartoon-y approach does make for some weirdly fun interpretations though. My favorite by far is Pollock’s take on the segment where Josh and Billy decide to check into the Saint James hotel in the city. Pollock’s version of a run-down New York is pretty bonkers, and evokes something you’d be more likely to see in a Troma or John Waters film. Speaking of John Waters, I think the caricature on the far left was an homage to the pencil-thin mustachioed king of sleazy cinema…

Of all the scenes to leave in or cut, I was actually surprised that the touching love scene between Josh and Susan was one of the ones that made the cut. Granted, we’re luckily spared of seeing the comic version of Hanks getting to second base. But the scene is alluded to and we do get the “lights on” quote/gag…

All in all I thought this was a thoroughly weird piece of obscure 80s merchandising, and quite possibly the only for the film Big (unless I eventually track down an actual novelization.) It certainly makes me wonder if there are comic adaptations of The Money Pit or the Man with One Red Shoe floating around out there. Better yet, I could actually see Dark Horse having done The ‘Burbs. As it stands, I guess I’ll just have to console myself with this parody of Splash in the meantime…

The Nerd Lunch podcasting crew recently invited me back onto their show to fill their revolving 4th chair. This time we sat down to talk about the three original Muppet flicks (including The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan), though of course the conversation also touches on the show and the most recent Muppets movie as well. Who are our favorite characters? What are our favorite gags? Most importantly, do we think Kermit and Piggy were actually married at the end of Manhattan?!? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out…

I had such a fun time reading the long sought-after Goonies novelization recently that I decided to dip back into my collection to find another fun one to devour. I wasn’t sure what to dip into next when I stumbled across a very reasonably priced copy of the Ghostbusters tie-in (reasonable being less than $10), so I decided that had to be the next on the reading pile. As a quick side note, I really can’t believe how insane some of the secondary market prices are on a handful of these movie novelizations. A nice copy of the American Ghostbusters (subtitled The Supernatural Spectacular) typically goes for around $30-$100, which is just loony toons. A reader named Erin also recently pointed to the scarcity of the Labyrinth tie-in, and doing some research I found that it sells for between $50-$200?!? WTF? I understand that these can sometimes be a bit rarer than say your average Stephen King or Janet Evanovitch paperback, but those prices are downright crazy town. Actually, I’m surprised that these two in particular haven’t been re-issued over the years due to the popularity of their respective franchises. There’s some new-ish Labyrinth manga and a slew of special edition DVDs, why not a newer printing of the novelization? I guess I feel lucky that I’ve managed to pick a bunch of these up here and there over the years for a buck or less, but there are still a few volumes that are just too rich for my blood (in particular the horror novelizations like Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13th, and the Thing.) Anyway, back to Ghostbusters…

This paperback, which was printed in 1985 by TOR, was written by Richard Mueller and was adapted from and expanded on the screenplay by Aykroyd and Ramis. The book is a little odd in that it’s not the first adaptation/novelization of Ghostbusters, that honor goes to Larry Miline who wrote a very faithful and dry translation of the script for Coronet, which was published in ’84 in the U.K. That isn’t a slight against Miline, by the by, it just points to the fact that in the world of movie novelizations there are basically two philosophies, straight/faithful adaptation into prose or expansion. Are either better or worse? Well, I don’t think there’s a right and a wrong, just expectation and desire and what experience you want out of reading one of these. I’m finding that I’m falling into the expansion camp. I mean, the standard complaint one hears when watching a film that’s been adapted from a novel is that there was so much left out (whether it be plotlines or subtext.) So when we reverse the polarity and adapt a movie to the novel format, it just stands to reason that there should be ample room to add a bit more story. My wife, on the other hand, is four square against the idea of expanding the story and considers stray plotlines and subtext to be outside of “official” cannon. Having grown up reading comics, I have to say that it’s a hard point to argue against. But I’m also really fond of the Laser Disc/DVD/Blu-Ray format and all the wonderful bits and pieces it brings to the experience of watching films. Deleted scenes, director and actor commentaries, and alternate casting snafus (like the original segments of Back to the Future shot with Eric Stoltz), all this stuff really goes a long way to enriching my love of these films. Are deleted scenes canonical? Who the hell knows. All I know is that I love watching Michael Beihn and Bill Paxton set up the defensive robot machine guns in Aliens, or Troy picking on Mouth, Chunk, Data, and Mikey in the convenience store scene in Goonies. Even though a lot of the stuff I’ve been finding in these novelizations is weird and at times swarthy (see my update on the Goonies novel review), I love that it exists.

So how does Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular fair in terms of expanded novelizations? I’d have to say that so far it’s setting the gold standard for what a great expansion can be. Whereas James Kahn took all sorts of weird twists and turns with the Goonies (both in the formatting, tone and added material), Mueller has done a pretty darn good job of keeping the added material and odd formatting in line with the experience of watching the film. There are some included scenes that were either filmed and deleted (like a framing device for the film featuring two bums, Harlan Bojay and Leonard Cooms, that witness most of the story from afar), or some that I don’t think ever made it from script to production (like a sequence involving a newly wed couple encountering Slimer in their honeymoon sweet, prompting the hotel to contact the Ghostbusters.) There’s also some space given to fleshing out the backgrounds of the majority of the main players; nothing too in-depth, but enough to flesh out the characters a bit more. That’s not to say that there aren’t some weird aspects and wrong turns in the novel…

Some of the weirder aspects involve some odd point-of-view work in the text. Though the book is largely written in 3rd person/omniscient, every so often Mueller dips into 1st person when he wants the characters to offer commentary. It’s generally a weird shift in narration, but like I mentioned in the Goonies novelization, 1st person is a really tricky device to use when dealing with the transition of characters from film to page. Dipping into the mind of a character that we’ve come to know and love though a film can be a very weird and disconcerting experience the writer goes “off script”. For instance, everyone thinks about sex to one degree or another, but if I’m used to dealing with a character where this is never brought up, say the Librarian in the opening sequence of Ghostbusters, then when she starts “thinking” about how she feels guilty for seeking out all kinds of ancient kinky woodcuts featuring taboo sexual practices in the library’s non-public collection, well, I get pretty weirded out. As far as I can tell, the librarian character in the script is slightly different; she’s written to be rotund and in her mid to late twenties, but for all intents and purposes the scene in the script is almost shot for shot what we’ve come to know and love in the final film. Mueller, though, felt the need to paint her as a bit more sad and depraved, which for an incidental character is pretty weird. This sort of thing pops up here and there in the novel, including in the scene where we’re first introduced to Dana as she gets out of a cab and goes into her building. The narrative is fractured into a bunch of perspectives as a handful of people on the street take notice of her and give their two cents. One of these includes an elderly man walking his dog who glances at her and thinks, “…how long (has) it been since it’s been long…” I might be reading too much into the passage, but I’m pretty sure he’s referring to having a boner. WTF? On the other hand though, these dips into character’s minds can sometimes be fascinating, like the sequence when one of the terror dogs, Vince Clortho the keymaster, is hiding in Louis Tully’s spare bedroom during his client soiree. Mueller actually dips into the terror dog’s mind to get his take on Louis. Weird, but cool!

There’s another weird sequence that actually manages to answer a nagging question I’ve always had about the flick. In the movie, during the big Ghostbusters success montage, there’s an odd dream sequence bit where Ray is being, um, “serviced” by a rather fetching ghost. The bit that’s always bugged me is that Ray is wearing some sort of period military outfit in the scene with no explanation as to why. I guess, since it’s framed as a dream (the screen has one of those flowing wavey filters as a transition into the scene) I always just assumed he was dreaming about being in the Civil War or something. As it turns out, there’s an explanation for the military garb. In the book (as well as in the shooting script), there’s a sequence later in the film, right after Ray and Winston are driving through the city talking about the end of the world, when the two go to Fort Detmerring looking for a spook. They split up and Ray stumbles upon a room that is a replica of a revolutionary war officer’s barracks. He finds a uniform and puts it on, lays on a bed and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes, the ghost they were looking for is about to go to town on his junk. Apparently this sequence was largely cut, but I’m betting none of them wanted to ditch the blowjob joke, so they sandwiched it into the montage. What’s even weirder is that this is actually the culmination of a plot thread in the book where Ray is both lonely and changing his feelings about catching the ghosts. Since Peter is courting Dana and (in the book) Egon and Janine are becoming an item, Ray is looking to blow off some steam, and the experience with the ghost is just what he was looking for. Also, there’s a bit with Ray thinking about how it might be wrong to catch these ghosts just to jail them in the containment unit, and when he awakes to his spectral date-night he wonders if maybe some ghosts are good. Weird.

As far as what’s new, there are a ton of little interesting tidbits like the fact that Janine designed the Ghostbusters logo (the iconic no-ghosts image), while Peter came up with the name. In the Ghostbusters success montage (and yes, there is even a montage in the book) there are segments when the GB’s are contacted by Revell models, Marvel Comics and TSR about licensing deals (none of which came to pass in reality even though all of this merchandising did end up at other companies including a West End role playing game, an Ertl AMT model kit, and a NOW comics series.) Ok, there was a UK Marvel comics, but not a domestic one. Their phone is also different in the book, consisting of a real number, 1-212-NO-GHOST. There’s also some neat details with Ecto-1 and their equipment that is different than in the movie. Part of the rig on top of Ecto-1 is there to sense and destroy (with lasers) anything placed on the vehicle when it’s locked and left alone, like parking tickets. Also, the proton packs produce a generator field when powered on that will affect people standing near by that don’t have their own pack on. This field will make your hair follicles itch as well as heat up any metal on your person including the fillings in your mouth. Another interesting tidbit is a slight difference in the containment unit. In the book (and I believe in the script as well), there is a observatory window on the unit so that you can see the ghosts that are inside. This comes up in a few scenes, most effectively when Ray ends up coming down at night to look inside, getting bummed by all the sad trapped ghosts that are just pacing around inside.

I don’t want to spoil all the differences in the book for those that might want to read it, but I did want to point to the fact that Mueller did a really good job of fleshing out Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston. There are sequences that illustrate the friendship of Peter and Ray, including a scene where Ray takes Peter home with him for a family reunion only to have him run off with his sister and his brother’s rental car, effectively making Ray an outcast in his own family. According to Mueller, Egon has a bit of a destructive thread in him starting back in childhood when he constructed homemade bombs that he used to detonate in deserted parking lots. Egon is also painted as fairly asexual, much in the same way that Sheldon Cooper is portrayed on The Big Bang Theory, though he does end up hooking up with Janine by the end of the book. My favorite bit of character background involves Peter’s family being part of a traveling carnival. He grew up a carney, and extremely devoted to his family (both immediate and communal), and viewed all other outsiders as rubes, marks, or those to be avoided. It illustrates why he has the extremely outsider and sarcastic streak in him…

I’ve talked before about my love of souvenir movie magazines and novelizations of 80s flicks because they were a great source of obscure information and deleted content from a lot of the films I grew up loving. Back before DVD and the internet, which provides such easy access to deleted scenes or behind the scenes commentary and the like, it was really hard to track down more about movies like The Goonies, Karate Kid, or the first Batman flick. So when you were the only one of your friends that happened to catch a screening Batman in the theater and you remembered a scene with a little homeless girl in a trash pile and no one believed you because that scene was edited out of the theatrical cut for the VHS release, well, you had your work cut out for you in proving it.

Over the last few years I’ve been picking up cheap copies of souvenir magazines and movie novelizations when I can find them. Lately I’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon a bunch of these 80s novelizations and I thought it would be fun to pull one out of the pile from time to time to share what insights or differences these offer from the versions of the films that we know and love. I had a lot of fun when I read the E.T. novelization by William Kotzwinkle, and I’m hoping more of these books were written with the same sort of changes in perspective that open me up to experiencing the flick with a fresh set of eyes. Real quick, I’d like to point out that I’m going to concentrate on novelizations, books based on screenplays, and not movies that were adapted from existing novels. For one it narrows the field a bit, and it pretty common for film adaptations to excise material from the original books because of time and pacing considerations.

I say it’s hard to track it down, but mainly I’m referring to copies of the book that were printed here in the US by Warner Bros. The book was also printed in the U.K. by Coronet in 1985, and from what I can tell there is no real differences it the text except an odd Britishism here and there (I compared it to a snippet of the American edition available on Google Books), and some minor differences in the cover blurbs. My UK edition simply states, “Take the Oath. Join the Adventure.”, whereas the US edition is a lot more wordy. Anyway, the UK edition is more or less readily available on ebay, and lately with the exchange rate equaling out it’s kind of a bargain.

Upon cracking the cover and diving into the book the first main difference that I noticed is that the book is presented in a slightly odd format. The text is bookended by excerpts from local Astoria newspaper articles, first detailing the escape of Jake Fratelli, and later covering the “rescue” of the kids, the arrests and prosecution of the Fratelli gang, and some other interesting footnotes to the story I’ll get into in a minute. The main reason for this is that for the bulk of the book Kahn chose to use Mikey as the narrator with a first person perspective. If I had to guess I’d say that this was in an attempt to make the novel more approachable for kids, but it ends up making the who thing very difficult to read. First person is a tricky perspective, and when adapting an omniscient film experience it forces the narrative to constantly explain why the narrator knows about sequences that they didn’t take part in or know little about. Thus the newspaper articles are Mikey’s way of opening the story with the facts of the breakout and the ensuring police chase. What killed me is how dry this approach came off, lacking any of the humor and excitement that was in the opening scenes of Donner’s film. Not only that but some little details are lost, most importantly how the chase manages to cross the paths of all the Goonies, Andy and Steph. Not a huge deal, but it’s a detail I love in the first film as it both introduces us to the characters and gives some background details on each of them (Mouth’s dad being a plumber, Steph’s family working as fishermen on the docks, and Chunk being a spaz to name a few.)

On the other hand, the “articles” that close out the story are kind of interesting. For one, they take the ending of the movie a bit further in that there is confirmation, through a series of excerpts, that the Goon docks are safe as the plans for the new golf course are ditched in favor of building more low cost housing. The already constructed country club was even rumored to be converted into a community center that will feature a children’s center, a Chinese restaurant, a plumbing supply house, a fish market, a new addition to the museum, and a public-access invention laboratory. A little goofy, but still pretty darn cute. The last article is a notice of the Bar Mitzvah for Jason “Sloth” Cohen, the newly adopted son of Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Cohen. So I guess Chunk made good on his promise to have Sloth come live with him…

As for the narrative being from the perspective of Mikey, this is also a little 50/50 in terms of execution and insight. On the plus side, it’s kind of fun to “hear” him tell the story, as he adds some background (most of it pointless, but still fun) and adding his thoughts on every aspect of the adventure. He makes a metric ton of Star Wars references (probably infused because Kahn also wrote the Return of the Jedi novelization), which is always fun, as well as playing the cool, level-headed leader of the group while describing each of the Goonies and their various quirks, annoying habits, and strengths. He even ends up explaining some of the subtle references that made it into the performances in the final film (like when Mouth first comes to the Walsh house and starts trying to cheer the brothers up with a slight John Belushi impression.) At the same time Kahn has him hating Saturday morning cartoons (I guess he’d rather be outside adventuring), already dating (and smooching girls before Andy), and comparing the Mad magazine “fold-in” concept to the Playboy centerfolds, which is just weird. Again, the danger of writing in the first person like this is that we’re in Mikey’s head, and being inside there is nothing like what I thought it would be in the movie. Granted, I know we’re really inside Kahn’s head, but you get my drift.

Anyway, some of the slight differences in the book include Mouth’s propensity for rhyming, Data pulling out inventions three times as much, and Mikey tending to censor some of the racier jokes and sight gags from the film with his descriptions (remember the broken stature of David, well Mikey didn’t want to repeat Brand saying that, “…If God made it that way, you’d all be pissing in your faces…”.) By the by, in the book Mikey’s mom discovers the broken statue. There’s also some interesting cross-pollinating with other Spielberg projects like Poltergeist. At one point Mikey shares and anecdote about how he broke his arm falling into an excavation in the newly built Cuesta Verde Estates housing development. Did I mention that James Kahn also wrote the novelization for Poltergeist? The thought that, Cuesta Verde would be within biking distance from Astoria is pretty cool, as if there really was this specific Spielberg suburbia out in the pacific northwest where all kinds of crazy shit happened. Maybe E.T. would have landed there too if that novelization hadn’t already been written by Kotzwinkle.

Also, for all those kids out there that only caught the Goonies when it aired on cable (specifically the Disney Channel in the early 90s), the book provides vindication of some of the deleted scenes that appeared in that cut of the film. I always thought it was weird that there were so many different versions of flicks in the 80s, one for theaters, one for vhs, one for cable, one for airline exhibitions, etc. Deleted scenes sort of meant more then, as they were potential filler for some of the other raunchier stuff that needed to be cut for cable. Anyway, I was one of those kids that saw the octopus scene, and the segment at the beginning when Mikey, Data, Chunk and Mouth have a run in with Troy in the minimart when the flick aired on the Disney channel, and later when watching the official VHS with friends none of them believed me that these scenes existed. Can’t express how happy I was to see them finally pop up on the DVD. There are also a couple of extensions of the wishing well scene. One involves Andy being inducted as an official Goony by repeating the oath: “I will never betray my Goon dock friends, We will stick together until the whole world ends, Through Heaven and Hell and nuclear war, good pals like us will stick like tar, In the city, or the country, or the forest, or the boonies, I am proudly declared a fellow…” The oath is finished off with the exclamation of “Leech!” as Mikey realizes they’re all covered in leeches. These scenes were new to me when I ready the youth adaptation of the movie back in 2010 during my Goonies 25th anniversary week. Glad to see them in this full on novelization as well.

I don’t want to spoil all the good stuff from the novel that didn’t make it into the film, but there’s one more segment that’s really cool involving an underground river. While the gang is trying to find their way to One-Eyed Willie’s ship, they come upon a cave with only one exit, which is almost completely submerged in water. There’s a raft, so they all get on as they hear the Fratelli’s hot on their trail. Along the ride they all take turns telling stories to keep each other from freaking out in the dark water-filled tunnel. Again, nothing that needed to be in the film, but it’s really fun to stumble upon an extra like this in the book. All in all I think this one is worth the read, even though the first person narrative is awkward. It’s a great way to spend a little more time with the gang while getting some new aspects to the adventure along the way. If nothing else it has me really jazzed to read the Three Weeks with the Goonies book by Mick Alderman. I can never get enough of this flick!

***UPDATE***

Okay, so there was one other thing that I wanted to point out about the book, one small segment of a scene that was cut from the film involving the leeches. I wasn’t sure I wanted to mention it because it’s kind of messed up, but I thought about it and I can’t help it, it’s just too damn weird. So in the wishing well sequence, at the end, after Andy has sent up the bucket empty, all the kids realize that they’re covered in leeches. Data has a bright idea and end up strapping two wires to a 20-volt battery. He sticks the wires in the water by his feet sending a light electrical charge through his body that’s lethal enough to kill the leeches. He does this for the rest of them, and afterwards, James Kahn tags on a small scene that is, well, almost obscene. After getting the shock, Andy and Stef are standing off to the side, and Kahn describes them as having “…limp smile(s) and small sigh(s)…” Then Stef says to Andy, “I got all tingly – just my luck, I’m in love with a pond!” After which the following passage appears: ‘It annoyed Andy, for some reason, I don’t know, like someone had made her feel good and she didn’t want to…’ Then Andy hauls off and slaps Data saying “Don’t-you-ever-try-that-again-with-me-Buster!” What the hell! Did Kahn actually suggest that Andy and Stef had orgasms from the electric shock!?! W-T-F?!?

After stumbling upon The Quest recently I’ve been in the mood to try and seek out some other obscure (or at least slightly forgotten) films from the 80s that I’ve missed out on over the years. Since I’m not into picking up bootlegs these days though, I’ve felt pretty limited as far as where to look. There are a number of films on Youtube, but the quality is typically pretty rough, rough enough to make sitting through a couple hours of choppy, static-y video migraine-inducing. After weighing the options I decided to pop for a Netflix streaming package, if only for a month so that I’d have enough time to take in the complete Spiderman and His Amazing Friends series.

I’ve heard that their streaming selection is pretty bad, especially for newer stuff, but since my interests tend towards stuff that’s at least 25 years old I thought there’d probably be enough to keep me occupied for awhile. Boy, was I ever right on that mark. Over the course of a week I’ve managed to dig up about 50 movies from their archives that look like the exact sort of flicks I want to dive into right now. Not really knowing where to start, I decided to watch the first thing I stumbled across which was a weird sci-fi fantasy film from 1985 called The Dungeonmaster. Much like The Quest, it’s know by different titles depending on where you hail from, the most common alternate title being Ragewar…

Though I’d never seen this film before, there was something nagging at the back of my mind, a familiarity with the title and concept that I just couldn’t shake. It wasn’t until afterwards while searching for some decent poster artwork that I stumbled upon the cover for the VHS home video release that it clicked. I must have thumbed over this cover a million times while scoping out my local video stores as a kid. The painting of W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless (who I always mistook for Ozzy Osbourne as a kid) with the wicked spiked headband and blood dripping down his chin and chest sent chills down my spine. He looked like the seriously evil and really screwed up older brother of David Bowie’s Jareth from Labyrinth…

Just to illustrate how awesome the cover artwork on VHS tapes were back in the day, this one was enticing but even so was still overshadowed by at least a thousand other choices. These days, if I saw a film with poster artwork like this I’d call in sick from work to catch it in the theater. Anyway, back to the flick. The Dungeonmaster was following pretty closely on the heels of films like Tron and Mazes and Monsters, playing around with the concept of taking folks from the real world and thrusting them into the fantasy realm of video and role playing games. The story centers on a computer geek named Paul who was part of a pilot program linking humans more directly to computers. He has a very close relationship with his feminine PC at home which he’s nicknamed Cal (short for X-Calibr8), who acts as his personal assistant that he can interface with via a special pair of glasses.

Actually, although Paul is the hero if the story, his creepy relationship/link with Cal sort of puts his heroics in a slightly dubious category. When we’re introduced to the character we discover that he works as an IT consultant who is letting Cal do all of the heavy lifting so to speak. While at work Paul’s glasses act as both a webcam for Cal and as mini display screens showing her commands. It’s a neat idea that the writers and directors make great pains to utilize repeatedly during the first 10 minutes of the film. Paul uses his glasses to “hack” into practically every single computer system he comes by including one that controls the city’s traffic lights (so he always gets his way.) This culminates in a sequence where he realizes he’s broke while trying to buy some flowers for his girlfriend. Instead of passing them up, he hacks into the nearest ATM and steals twenty bucks from some stranger’s account…

Not the most noble start for our hero, but I never held it against a young John Connor in Terminator 2, so I suppose I shouldn’t split hairs here. Back to the plot, Paul’s been having weird dreams about his girlfriend where she’s one part seductress and one part damsel in distress. Though it’s not clear in the film, I think Cal has been hacking away at Paul’s brain while he sleeps in an effort to separate him from Gwen. The flick opens with one of these dream sequences (which by the way, is the only portion of the film to feature R-rated material, in particular a full frontal nudity scene with Gwen), and in a second sequence it appears that Paul and Gwen are transported to a mythical wasteland…

This realm is ruled by the vile Mestema (played with fervor by Night Court’s Richard Moll), an immortal wizard who is looking for people to torture and to face his evil challenges…

Mestema outfits Paul with some more appropriate clothes, as well as providing him access to his “magic” computer via a wristband controller device. In the same breath he’s chained Gwen up to a rock and issues Paul a challenge to face his seven tasks in exchange for liberation from this world. If he fails, Mestema will keep Gwen and will kill Paul.

So much like Tron we have a nerdy character stuck inside a fantasy world where he must risk life and limb to escape, except in The Dungeonmaster that world is heavily influenced by table top role playing games. Each of these seven challenges takes place in a different environment (and is written and directed by a slew of different people), from ancient temples with stop motion monkey god statues to ice caves populated by the souls of villains throughout time (including werewolves, Jack the Ripper, Genghis Kahn, and Albert Einstein?)…

There are also a couple of odd choices for environments, including a real-world scenario where Paul has to stop a serial killer in New York and a very stripped down Road Warrior-esque car chase sequence…

Though most of the film is pretty cheesy with horrible dialogue, acting and special effects, there are a few standout moments that make this flick worth watching. If nothing else, the wide variety of effects work on display is kind of cool. The film mixes stop motion and traditional back-lit 2D animation, as well as compositing and puppetry to bring the various villains and creatures to life. There’s a pretty goofy battle sequence between Paul and Mestema in the wasteland involving both magical and computer generated (conceptually, not animation-wise) dragons. In fact it’s so cheesy that it makes movies like John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China look like Citizen Kane in comparison…

There’s also a really creepy sequence where Paul is zapped to the land of the dead in which he has to battle two undead zombie warriors as well as a demon puppet…

By far though, my favorite sequence has Paul whisked away to a heavy metal concert featuring the band W.A.S.P. Paul has to save Gwen from a homicidal Blackie Lawless in what has to be the epitome of an over the top 80s metal music video…

I’d be lying through my teeth if I said that this film has aged well, but I also can’t deny how much fun it was to watch. If this is the sort of flicks that are populating the Netflix streaming archive than I might just have to keep the subscription going for awhile…

So last week I discovered an 80s kid’s flick that I’d never heard of before (The Quest), and I decided to try and document the process of finding some new nostalgia so to speak. It’s rare that I stumble upon kids flicks that I haven’t seen from my youth as I was a voracious movie watcher with access to huge video stores and HBO. I obviously haven’t seen every film from 1979-1989, but even the ones I’ve missed I’m typically aware of them (for example D.A.R.Y.L. or Mac and Me.) The Quest was completely under my radar though, and as I loved Henry Thomas in both E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and Cloak & Dagger, I couldn’t wait to catch up with this obscure flick.

Unfortunately the film isn’t available on DVD, but there are a couple of copies floating around on Youtube, so this past weekend I sat down and took it in. Before I dig into the flick, there are a couple things I’d like to mention. First, for those interested in watching this movie who don’t want anything spoiled (I know I didn’t), then you might want to skip this review until you’ve gotten a chance to see the flick. One of my goals with watching this flick was to come at it completely fresh with the exception of the image on the VHS cover (which led me to the film in the first place) so that I could do my best to recreate what it would have been like watching the flick for the first time as a kid. But I do want to talk about the various plot points in the film, so you’ve been warned.

Second, I wanted to bring up the confusion over the title to this flick. It was originally titled Frog Dreaming for its 1986 Australian theatrical release, but when it made it’s way to Britain and America it was re-titled The Go-Kids and The Quest respectively. I haven’t done a ton of research on the reasoning behind the change, though I can infer it was because the original title is potentially a little too metaphorical for kids. Similarly, the original one-sheet poster was a rather tame waist-up painting of Henry Thomas’ character Cody with little adornment. This was also changed for the international releases. I’ve already shared the American artwork, which features Cody, battle-ready complete with shotgun, underwater camera and a giant sea monster in the background. Awesome right? Well the British poster is similarly awesome, but it takes the imagery in an entirely different direction that I think also had a drastic effect on the re-titling of the film to The Go-Kids…

This poster is a weird amalgamation of The Goonies, Conan, Star Wars, and National Lampoon’s Vacation (itself a parody of Boris Vallejo’s barbarian artwork done by Boris himself) theatrical posters complete with raised light saber, clingy girls, and skeletons. Watching the film I did get a heavy Goonies vibe, so this is sort of a no-brainer, but I do have to say that adding the light saber was stretching it a bit (though it is a reference to a scene in the film.) Anyway, here’s a couple of the other posters to illustrate my point…

As for the film itself, I will say that I loved it. It’s right up there with other childhood adventure flicks like The Goonies, The Monster Squad, Flight of the Navigator and The Explorers, though it has very little of the pop and polish of any of those flicks. The flick is sort of low key and a slow burn, but it has all the important ingredients that make it as cool as the other flicks mentioned. So first things first, it didn’t disappoint.

The flick was written by Everett DeRoche and directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, a name that might be familiar with 80s kids for his flick BMX Bandits, or to horror fans for his Ozsploitation flick Dead-End Drive-In. I have seen BMX Bandits, though it’s been 25 years or so, so I need to reacquaint myself with it.

The first thing I noticed while watching the film was that Trenchard-Smith was layering in the foreshadowing from the opening frames. The opening titles are flicking across the screen while the camera is underwater in a murky lake which sets an ominous and slightly creepy tone. From here it pulls out of the water and centers on various frogs around this watering hole lake. The frogs switch to large lizards, which eventually give way to our opening set piece with involves a slightly drunk man lazily fishing on the lake. Something is going on, the wind is picking up, the fisherman gets a bite on his line and bubbles start rising out of the middle of the lake. Something big is in that water…

By the end of the sequence we get a glimpse at something rising out of the water in a very Loch Ness sort of fashion, but then before it can lift up completely it’s back into the murky depths…

Next we’re introduced to Henry Thomas as Cody, who is for all intents and purposes the idealized version of who I wanted to be as a kid. There will always be a part of me that wishes I was as clever as Data, as courageous as Mikey, or as flippant and “cool” as Mouth from The Goonies, but I was always a little more in the realm of Chunk (though not quite as much as a spaz.) I always saw the better version of myself as being cool, quiet, in control and smart enough to build all sorts of gizmos and machines; a sort of young MacGuyver, but totally willing to carry weapons larger than penknives. Cody is that kid. Between his jean jacket, camo vest, fingerless gloves, and his penchant for welding and contraption building he has a lot of the “cool kid” bases covered. Add to this the fact that he’s an orphan growing up in the Australian Outback with a disdain for authority and a flare for daredevil antics and you have one of the cooler 80s kid heroes ever on screen. Sure, I might be playing him up a bit much, but again, I identified with the character heavily, so I can’t really help it. Thomas’s Cody is the logical extension of his Elliott from E.T. and Davey from Cloak & Dagger, and The Quest is surely the third in his trilogy of kid’s adventure films.

As I mentioned, Cody is a tinkerer supreme, and the next sequence in the film involves him putting the finishing touches on a retractable attachment to his BMX bike that will allow him to ride smoothly on railroad tracks…

This is also a pretty cool scene as it sets up Cody’s role in the town as a bad boy daredevil. He’s planning on riding the rails from the town to school in under three minutes, but considering it’s over three miles away, that’s kind of fast on a bike. On his way to the tracks people from all over see him on his way and know exactly what he’s about to take on and a crowd starts to follow like a bunch of dogs following a fire engine. This sequence also sets up his relationship with a local girl, Wendy, who obviously has a crush on him, which is one aspect of this flick that tends to differ from other similar 80s kid’s flicks. Typically there is no romance for the main kid characters (with the exception of flicks like The Wizard or SpaceCamp), and even when there is it’s usually regulated to the more teenaged characters like The Karate Kid’s Daniel or Bran & Andi from The Goonies.

Anyway, after a near miss and last second bail-out, Cody proves himself by making it to the school in under three minutes. Of course the local sheriff gets wind of the stunt and ends up giving our hero some grief. To celebrate Cody and Wendy (with her little sister Jane in tow) decide to hike into the woods for a picnic. Being a born adventurer Cody leads them a bit deeper into the bush than expected and they end up at Devil’s Knob and the lake known as Donkegin Hole (from the opening scene in the flick.) Though he’s never been to this lake, Cody does know the guy from the opening of the film as a dentist from Sydney that camps out at the watering hole during the summer. While searching for the dentist, they group split up and before they know it, the two girls find themselves stranded on a raft in the middle of the lake. Of course the bubbles and wind start up again as well. Cody comes to the rescue by jumping off of a five story cliff into the lake so that he can pull the girls to shore. This is sort of a fun set piece in the flick that again displays the careless gusto of Cody…

Back on shore they finally discover the dentist, and well, lets just say that’s one dead dentist…

Cody soon discovers the legend of Donkegin Hole, which is thought to have a Bunyip (or large rat-like swamp creature) in it. Starting to obsess over the whole thing, Cody takes a two-day trip alone out to the Aboriginal country to try and track down any information he can get on Donkegin and bunyips. He’s pointed to a mystic named Charlie Pride, who he encounters one night on a foggy dock. Pride gives Cody a test to stand up to a demon at the end of the dock, a test that will reveal whether he’s a boy or a man. Of course he isn’t afraid, and he walks right up to the apparition and discovers that it’s nothing more than a scarecrow with a florescent light behind it. Though it’s not really a pivotal scene, this is where the “light saber” on the poster artwork comes from. In a fun 80s era reference Cody picks up the light and pretends it’s a light saber. Looking back at the characters Henry Thomas portrayed in the 80s, this type of real-life kid play is a reoccurring motif. Again, it’s also something you don’t always see in 80s kid’s flicks either.

This is also part of a weird thread in the film that involves a bit more mysticism. One of the really cool aspects of this flick is how real to life it feels. Because there isn’t a loud pop rock soundtrack and because everything plays out so slowly it feels very real. So when Cody encounters Charlie Pride it goes into another place tonally. Luckily though, Pride disappears and leaves Cody only with the experience of the scarecrow meet-up. This only strengthens his resolve to solve the mystery of the Donkegin bunyip though, and when he gets back home from his research journey he devises a plan to try and snare the bunyip. Of course this involves the construction of a homemade cannon, like any sane kid-plan would. Cody baits a shark hook with a leg of lamb and then waits by the lake for the bunyip to surface, which it does, so he can shoot it with the cannon, which he also does. Unfortunately it’s not enough and the bunyip re-submerges much like the previous times it’s shown up. Plan A failed, but like any good mini-Macguyver Cody has a plan B in mind as well which involves a makeshift scuba helmet, a spear gun (mistakenly painted as a shotgun on the American poster), and a waterproof camera. This time Cody is going to get a picture of this creature!

Again, it’s this devil-may-care sense of adventure that really draws me into the film, and the fact that the main character has to devise all sorts of ways to accomplish his insane feats just cements it as a cool flick. Take the opening sequences of The Explorers movie where the boys are building the spacecraft, or when Rudy is pulling together all the needed weapons in The Monster Squad for examples of what I’m trying to get across. It’s just pure wish-fulfillment.

Long story short, Cody, with the help of Wendy on the air pump contraption, dives into the lake hell bent on finding the Donkegin bunyip. He never resurfaces though, which sends Wendy crying back into town alerting everyone that Cody is dead. Or is he?

Later that night Cody’s guardian and the sheriff decide to try and drain the lake to find the body, while Wendy takes one last look around Cody’s workshop trying to come to terms with his passing. What she finds though is that Cody had figured out what the bunyip actually is, and there’s a chance that he might still be alive. She leads the town folk back up to the lake, which has been half drained by this point, and thus begins a mad rush to try and find out if Cody is still alive somewhere under the water. It’s at this point that we get the full reveal of the bunyip creature and it’s not at all what the viewer expects!

In reality the creature is an old piece of mining equipment called a Donkey Engine. It’s basically an huge excavation crane that has had air trapped under it causing it to life to release some of the pressure from time to time. Cody managed to find his way into the air pocket underwater, and as the “creature” lift’s its head out of the water he finally manages to escape to freedom.

All in all this was a really interesting flick that manages to pull together so many of the things that I loved when I was a kid. If I’d seen this back in the day I probably would have been head over heels for it. The only thing that doesn’t sit well with me is the weird mystical subplot with Charlie Pride. He reappears one more time at the end of the film. Cody, after surviving the whole ordeal, makes his way alone back to Donkegin Hole to survey the area. On a separate cliff, Pride appears, though this time he’s covered in tribal garb and made up to look like a Kurdaitcha (aboriginal boogeyman). Pride proceeds to sweep his arms about making all sorts of junk (including the Donkey Engine) to magically crawl back into the leftover water. The film ends with Cody realizing there is magic involved, which totally negates what the rest of the film was building up through the whole running time. I can understand if Trenchard-Smith and DeRoche wanted to keep from stripping all of the magic from the film, but to blatantly throw this sort of mystical endcap onto the film really does it a disservice.

Here’s to hoping this flick eventually makes it onto DVD. I’m also crossing my fingers that I can run across another hidden gem of a flick like this in the future…

One of my favorite pastimes since creating this site is seeking out old magazines from the 80s looking for hidden gems from the decade that I think are worth talking about. Be it old advertisements for forgotten food like the Frankenstein’s monster-influenced, chili-stuffed hot dogs (Frank’n Stuffs), or insane ads for Back to the Future-themed Power Wheel DeLoreans, there’s always something fun to uncover. Recently while flipping through some old issues of Billboard magazine I stumbled upon an advertisement for a kid’s movie that I’d never heard of before. Now I’m not the end-all be-all encyclopedia of everything 80s, but I did experience my fair share of what the decade had to offer kids, in particular film-wise. With the exception of a handful of made-for-TV flicks here and there, I think I’ve seen most of the kid’s flicks from the decade. Or I thought I had, until I saw this awesome advertisement for The Quest…

Why did I never stumble across this VHS cover while combing though the various video rental joints of my youth and teenage years? The flick star’s E.T. and Cloak & Dagger’s Henry Thomas as an orphan living in the Outback with relatives after his parents pass. Emboldened by the local legends of a lake monster named Donkegin, Thomas gears up and goes on the hunt for the creature. Right now that’s about all I know about this flick (well, that and that The Quest is the American title for this Aussie flick which was originally known as Frog Dreaming.) I’ve found this flick in various forms on Youtube and I’m super excited to watch it asap.

I’ve never really done this on the site before, but I thought it would be fun to try and share the process I go through while looking for content to write about. In this instance, I’ve found a badass advertisement for an unseen flick from the 80s, and I’ve tracked down a copy to watch. I wanted to share this portion of the excitement, which is mostly the unknown and potential for finding another awesome kid’s flick from my youth. Will the movie live up to the potential and hype of this ad, or will it be an utter let down? Some of you have probably already seen this flick and know that answer. But I’m about to find out, and hopefully I’ll be able to share my thoughts next week after watching The Quest.

I mean come on, it’s Elliott with a shotgun hunting the down-under equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster! How can this not be awesome?

Just wanted to take a quick break from my annual holiday hiatus to share this awesome magazine cover that I’ve been sitting on for far too long. This was pointed to and provided by the awesome allhallowSteve over at Halloween Addict. What more needs to be said other than Santa on a lightcycle!?!

This is just carrying on the new tradition here at Branded of showcasing Santa riding some kickass vehicles, like last year’s BMX ad…

It has been a crazy and fun year here at Branded (my sixth), and I hope that everyone out there in internetland is having a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate and see you guys in 2012!